Hemoglobin is the protein contained in red blood cells that is responsible for delivery of oxygen to the tissues. Whew, that just means if your hemoglobin levels are low, you feel pretty crappy. For women, a normal range is 12.3 to 15.3. Around the time I began dialysis, mine fell to 5.8. They usually don’t do a blood transfusion until it drops to 7.0. When mine was so low, I barely had energy to get to the doctor. I mean it makes you feel like you can’t even sit up. Not everyone has a low hemoglobin at the beginning of dialysis, but I’ve heard others talk about going through the same thing. There are meds they administer at dialysis that help with this and it works well. Mine now runs around 11.